Adam's Apples

With its cherry-red blush, tapered profile, and prominent light lenticels, today's photo suggests nothing less than an enormous strawberry. Coromandel is a medium-large apple, ribbed and conical. The lenticels are rough and slightly extruded, providing an unusual tactile sensation.

This variety wins a spot in my unwritten list of especially marvelous apple names. It came my way courtesy of a generous reader. Specifically, Seek-No-Further reached me via U.S. mail, carefully packed, eight scarred apples of small-medium size. Each has a ruddy red blush, streaky over green yellow, and an oblate shape that is ever-so-slightly ribbed. There is a dull brownish bloom, which is not terribly attractive (it washes off), and large light lenticels that are widely spaced.

Today's apple grew in the same orchard where this variety was first discovered one hundred and fifty years ago. American Beauty, large, round, and ribbed, has a dark red blush, sometimes streaky, over yellow green. Russet, rough to the touch, gives this fruit a sandblasted aspect. Lenticels are light, on the large side, and numerous. My apple feels quite firm and smells of cider.

A reader asks whether another name for Pomme Gris is "Grey Pearmain." My answer follows, but if you know better, drop us a line in the comments.

Available nearly year round, this durable variety is a personal mainstay in the winter and spring, when they are shipped from controlled-atmosphere storage to the supermarkets. I've already reviewed Empire, but since I eat so many of these felt I should, for once, try one fresh from the orchard.

This year's annual celebration and exploration of apples in the state of Maine is this Saturday the 24th. The event is sponsored by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, in Unity, Maine. Activities include cooking workshops, apple and cider tastings, an expert panel (to identify your mystery varieties), and the fellowship and good cheer that ripens where apple lovers gather. Thanks to Kenn for this information!

A local apple—Roxbury today is part of Boston—these are medium to medium-large and only partly rusetted over spring green. Some have a coppery blush. The patchy russet is a grey brown and the underlying colors show through a little. Roxbury's lenticels are small and often rusetted; some are larger and slightly raised. My samples run from ribbed to slightly ribbed, with a closed calyx, and are quite firm in hand.

This medium-sized apple has a splotchy, streaky blush that is quite a deep purplish red in places; the unblushed skin is a light yellow-green. It is slightly ribbed. The lenticels are tiny, sparse, white, and insignificant, and there is a good deal of harmless flyspeck, perhaps because this apple grew on an organic farm. The apple has a sweet vinous smell mixed with cider.

This apple is on the large side of medium, ribbed and conical. Its coloring is subtle, a dull faint pink blush over light green, with green lenticels. Splendour's flesh is quite crisp and medium-fine-grained, white tinged with green, and juicy. Bites chunk off satisfyingly.

They stopped making these in 1938. This one was minted in 1923, a year before my mother was born. You could buy an apple for a nickel back then. Baldwin was still the most popular apple in America.

This medium-sized apple, bought at farmers market on September 30, has a glossy deep red blush that is half saturated and half washed out.  Lenticels add a sparse decoration of tiny light spots, and one of my tasting samples has a few crackles of russet on the skin. Spartan's flesh is medium-fine-grained and white with yellow highlights. It is very crisp and juicy, sweet with just a little tempering tartness.

It's been nearly a year since I briefly described the searchable catalog of apples in the National (UK) Fruit Collection. This database profiles nearly 2,000 apple varieties, the most extensive available online. It had been hosted by Brogdale Farm, in Kent. Since then, Brogdale and the Collection have reached a new relationship. The National Fruit Collection, including the catalog, is today curated and administered by the University of Reading.

The growers around here seem to harvest Suncrisp in mid to late October. All but Nagog Hill Farm, who had these for sale on September 19.  I asked about this, to be told, Just let them sit for a few days. I waited a week, but I'm not convinced these were really ready to eat. Read and judge for yourself.

October roars in like a pride of lions—at least in terms of the breadth of choice in what you can pick or buy at the orchard, farm stand, or farmers market. By Halloween, however, the riot of choices will have dwindled. In the mean time, enjoy! McIntosh and Macoun, king and queen of autumn, belong at the top of any list of apples to buy this month, at least in the Northeast. Indeed these beauties are at peak now, depending on where you live. What are you waiting for? Also towards the beginning of the month it is worth seeking out Cox's Orange Pippin , the more so if you have never had the pleasure. This variety is wonderfully complex and satisfying.  Cox keeps well, and is said to improve with some time in storage, but their harvest is very soon--and they go fast. October is a great month for heirlooms, keepers, and winter apples--which will be harvested today and eaten int...